James Faith
For the family and friends of late Oak Cliff dad James Faith, this case probably will never be closed. They are always going to be baffled and bruised by the actions of Jennifer Faith and Darrin Lopez, who orchestrated and carried out James’ murder.
One can only hope they take some comfort in the fact that the duo responsible for James’ death at age 49 is now serving lifelong prison sentences.
Jennifer Faith was sentenced last year to life in prison for masterminding the murder of her husband.
Last week jurors handed down a 62-year sentence to 51-year-old Lopez for pulling the trigger.
During Tuesday’s opening statements, defense attorney Juan Sanchez promised “one of the most heartwrenching, tragic cases anybody has ever heard in this courthouse.”
Sanchez, the other counselors, James’ best friend Jason Snyder (who effectively stood in as witness and spokesperson for the still-gutted Faith family), Dallas police detectives, Lopez’s Army brothers, James’ colleagues, forensic and psychological expert witnesses and even Lopez himself delivered on that promise from varying angles.
By the time both sides rested, a few things seemed pretty clear:
James Faith was a beloved father, son, friend, boss and neighbor with a generous spirit and a renowned sense of dad-joke humor. During the trial, jurors watched a video showing several children of assorted age running around the Faith’s Oak Cliff home, baskets in their little hands. James is standing in the open kitchen — he’s a tall, formidable man with a warm smile. According to Snyder, James hosted a neighbor’s foster kids for an egg hunt on the Easter before he died.
Darrin Lopez committed the pre-meditated, violent killing of an innocent man. Yet he believed he was killing a violent abuser and a person who was putting the life of the woman he loved in danger.
Jennifer and James Faith
Jennifer Faith — well aware of both Lopez’s attachment to her and Lopez’s years of physical and emotional trauma and brain injury — went to unimaginable lengths to convince Lopez that she was being regularly beaten and raped by James, that she and her young adult daughter’s life was in danger and that calling police was not an option.
While prosecutors argued no reasonable person would have believed her deception, anyone who sat through the week of testimony could see that Lopez did.
In the penalty phase, Lopez’s eldest stepdaughter tearfully told jurors about the day she went to Dallas County Jail, where Lopez has been held the past two years, and convinced “the only dad she’s ever known” that it had all been a complex lie and that James Faith, the man he gunned down on previously peaceful Waverly Street in Oak Cliff, was utterly innocent.
“He was devastated,” Summer Nelson said. “He said he took the equivalent of him from me away from Amber (the Faith’s daughter).”
Darrin Lopez during trial
Were it not for what he did to Jamie Faith that October morning in 2020, Lopez — a twice-injured military veteran with a Purple Heart, a man whose dog held several service awards and whose special forces brother testified that he literally owed him his life — would be considered a hero. Lopez was deployed six times and ultimately discharged on full disability with a traumatic brain injury. He survived a road bomb that killed more than 20 of his fellows.
He also has endured trauma outside his 20 years in service, including the drowning death of a grandchild and the suicide of his best friend. His daughter recalls how hard he took the death of his dog that had been alongside him during two tours of duty. That was when he first started sinking into depression, Nelson testified.
Instead, as he said himself, Jennifer Faith turned him into a monster.
Prisons are filled with tragic histories. No matter what Darrin Lopez believed, killing a person who poses no immediate life threatening danger is dishonorable, as the prosecutor said last week, and it is a felony, and at least 12 jurors believe 62 years is the just sentence.
The links below include reporting from each day of the trial:
Day one: Oak Cliff neighbor testifies about coming face to face with a killer
Day two: Detective Eric Barnes reads torrid texts and emails
Day three: Darrin Lopez details the murder he committed
